The Alleged Murder of Noel Angel Alvarez

In March of 2023, an investigation into the whereabouts of 6-year-old Noel Alvarez began. He’d already been missing for months. Noel had several siblings, but unlike them, he had special needs to attend to. His mother, Cindy Rodriguez-Singh, told the Everman Police that Noel had gone to live with his father in Mexico. But when investigators with Child Protective Services checked that out, his father, who had been deported before Noel was even born, had never met the boy. Cindy told her family a conflicting story – that she’d sold Noel to a woman in a grocery store parking lot. Neither, it appears, is even close to the truth and Noel’s mother is alleged to have murdered him. She fled to India with her husband and other children to avoid prosecution.

If you have information about the whereabouts of Cindy Rodriguez Singh, please call the FBI Dallas Field Office at 972-559-5000. Tips outside of the US should be reported to a country’s US Embassy. If you have any information that might assist in the investigation of Noel’s case, please call the Everman Police Department at 817-293-2923.

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Sources: WFAA.com, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram, KERAnews.org, fox4news.com, People.com, CBSnews.com, NBCdfw.com, and FBI.gov 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Gone Coal. Podcasts may contain violent or graphics subject matter.
Listener discretion is advised. Everman, Texas is a residential community
located on Fort Worth's southern edge. Until the arrival of
white settlers in the eighteen fifties, Apache, Kiowa and Wichita
tribes inhabited the area where the small city now sits,

(00:25):
and the arrival of the railroad in nineteen o two
was what spurred economic and population growth. It was at
that time that Everman Village was formed, after folks moved
in from Enon to the east to be closer to
the train tracks. What was once called Oak Grove was
renamed after an engineer with the International Great Northern Railroad,

(00:48):
John Wesley Everman. Not long after, a post office and
school district were established, and in nineteen seventeen, Baron Field
was created in the area, a flight training center for
the Aviation Division of the United States Signal Corps and
the Canadian Royal Flying Corps. This stimulated the economy, of course,

(01:11):
but Everman Village remained a small community. In the summer
of nineteen forty five, residents voted they become an incorporated city.
A month later, five aldermen A Marshall and a mayor
were elected. In nineteen forty eight, Everman Village became Everman

(01:32):
after a series of steps. A public water system was introduced,
and a fire in nineteen sixty six, the second major
blaze in fifty years, claimed several businesses. Like the first time,
the small city rebuilt, Everman continued to grow right alongside
Fort Worth, becoming a suburban outlier typical of the area.

(01:56):
By the late twenty tens, it was home to more
than six thousand people, mostly comprised of working class folks
who commute to the city or other areas in the
Dallas Fort Worth metroplex for work. The city's police staff
consisted of eighteen people in twenty twenty three. That year,

(02:16):
the small department was rocked by a shocking case that
took the entire community by storm, when six year old
Noel Alvarez disappeared. Noel Angel Rodriguez Alvarez was born to

(02:56):
Cindy Cecilia Rodriguez Alvarez and Reno Alvarez Contreras on February second,
twenty seventeen. Noel was born prematurely at only twenty three
weeks of gestation. Partially because of this the boy had
physical and developmental challenges. Among his several conditions were speech delay,

(03:19):
chronic lung disease that sometimes required oxygen to treat, and
esotropia in his eyes, a condition that caused them to cross. Noel,
of course, required special care and also close attention. Cindy
had eight more children, three of whom her oldest lived

(03:41):
with her mother. Noel was the youngest son of Marino,
but just before he was born, the man was deported
to Mexico. Cindy was left to raise five kids on
her own, which only exacerbated her struggles with alcohol addiction.
In twenty twenty, she was arrested and charged with her

(04:02):
third d WI, this time driving while intoxicated with a
child under fifteen years old. With Noel and his siblings
in the vehicle, Cindy had crashed into a poll. The
eventual repercussions were typical of the charges. Cindy was given
ten years probation, had a breathalyzer installed in her car,

(04:25):
and Child Protective Services removed Noell and the other children
from her care for a year. From twenty twenty to
twenty twenty one, three year old Noel and two of
his siblings were under the foster care of a woman
named Patricia Paris. Patricia bonded particularly with Noel, later saying

(04:46):
he was her baby, her cool dude. He followed her
around wherever she went, and even though she tried to
get him to call her by another nickname, he called
her Mommy. Noel could be shy, but with Patricia it
seemed he'd found his person. She described Noel as happy.

(05:07):
He could always be seen with a toy in his hand.
He was always laughing. Despite what doctors said about his
developmental disabilities, Noel began talking quite well, played like a
normal child, and could navigate a tablet. Patricia said he
was mastering normal functions for a child his age. After

(05:29):
a year, Noel and his siblings were returned to Cindy.
Patricia kept in touch with Noel, often chatting with him
over FaceTime and sometimes visiting in person. After February of
twenty twenty two, however, Patricia's calls went unanswered. Long before,

(05:51):
in twenty thirteen, Cindy Rodriguez Alvarez met a man named
Charles Allen Parson in the produce section of a grocery store.
The two struck up a conversation. He was thirty four
years her senior. Charles opened up, telling Cindy that he'd
recently gotten out of a bad relationship that had lasted

(06:12):
eleven years. At the end of the day, Charles said
his ex, a drug addict, took him for all he had.
Cindy told Charles she'd come over and cook for him
every now and then, and offer he found impossible to refuse,
and their friendship took off. The freshly made bachelor was

(06:34):
living alone on the thirty seven hundred block of Wisteria
Drive in Everman, a house he had owned for about
thirty years. Charles was also a registered sex offender due
to an indecent exposure conviction from nineteen ninety seven. When
Noel's father, Marino, was deported, Cindy showed up unannounced to

(06:56):
ask Charles if she and the kids could sleep in
her car outside his head house. She had no money,
nothing to eat, and no diapers. She told Charles it
was a particularly cold night, and he offered Cindy and
the kids his two spare bedrooms. The arrangement turned out
to be mutually beneficial. Because he worked all the time,

(07:19):
Charles figured Cindy could do some cooking cleaning, shopping, and
other chores and errands in exchange for a rent free
living situation. He also had medical issues he was dealing with,
so having someone around the house to simply look after
him was a major help and comfort. Charles, Cindy, and

(07:40):
the kids became even closer. She referred to him as
the children's godfather, while he decided he'd leave her his
house when he died since he didn't have anyone else
to leave it to. Later, Charles would comment that Noel
was shy but sweet, and that Cindy was always kind
to him. Eventually, Cindy met a man named Arshdeep Singh

(08:05):
at a small store down the road from Charles's house.
Arsteep worked for a company that operates convenience stores in Texas,
and he helped with banking and managing merchandise. Born in India,
Arshteep came to the US sometime before twenty sixteen when
his driver's license was issued. He and Cindy hit it off.

(08:29):
According to Charles, that was at least in part due
to the way Arsteep treated her children. Arshteep was parental,
patient and affectionate with Noel and his siblings, who all
called him daddy and appeared to love them as his own.
The man made decent money, Charles said, and spoiled the

(08:51):
kids with toys and new clothes on a regular basis.
In twenty twenty one, Arshteep and Cindy got married. Though
they'd been living in the two spare bedrooms inside Charles's house,
they outgrew the space. Arsdeep bought a large shed for
the backyard and repurposed it as a small home, running

(09:12):
electricity to it and separating the space into bedrooms by
using curtains. There was, however, no running water, a problem
remedied by Charles leaving his house unlocked, so Cindy, Rshdeep
and the kids could come and go as they needed
to use the restroom or the kitchen. The kids, anyway,

(09:34):
often slept inside Charles's house, which was a little cluttered
bachelor messy perhaps, but clean. The shed was another story,
later described as living in squalor. The shed was piled
high with clothes, food, two beds, baby products, and toys.

(09:54):
Cindy was a follower of Santa Muerte, or the Saint
of Holy Death, a worship practice embraced in Mexico and
other parts of the world. Often by those who are
marginalized by society. Santa Muerte resembles the grim Reaper, but
the rituals and prayers associated with the folk saint are

(10:15):
believed to result in protection or miracles. Scattered skeletal figures
associated with the Holy Saint of Death also cluttered Cindy
and Arsteep's shed. Still, the children appeared to be doing
great at school. They were A and B students, but

(10:35):
something was terribly wrong. On October twentieth, twenty twenty two,
Cindy Rodriguez Singh gave birth to she and Arshteep's twin girls,

(10:57):
her ninth and tenth children, alongside his siblings. Little Noel
visited his brand new baby sisters at the hospital, but
not long after, family members began to realize something wasn't
quite right. On March twenty, at the twenty twenty three
Everman Police officers were dispatched to the thirty seven hundred

(11:19):
block of Wasteria Drive to perform a welfare check on
six year old Noel Alvarez, who a concerned though anonymous
family member had reported to Child Protective Services hadn't been
seen for four months since November twenty third, twenty twenty two.
When police arrived, Cindy told them Noel was with his

(11:41):
biological father in Mexico. Because they had no reason to
believe she was lying, Officers took the information back to CPS,
but it was hardly over. Someone at CPS was hell
bent on doing their job. On March twenty third, twenty
twenty five three, just three days after the welfare check,

(12:03):
a CPS investigator contacted the Everman Police Department again. They'd
spoken with other concerned family members, the investigator told police,
and had also tracked down Noel's father, Marino, in Mexico.
He said he didn't have his boy and in fact,
he'd never even met him because he was deported back

(12:25):
to Mexico before Noel was born, a statement Homeland Security
records backed up, and the CPS investigator said there was
plenty more to be worried about. They attempted to reach
Noel's four siblings at their school, but found they were absent.
Cindy had phoned the Everman ISD school and asked about

(12:48):
unenrolling them. Noel wasn't even enrolled. Armed with this new information,
the CPS investigator reached out to Cindy, but without success.
The theory was that Cindy was avoiding speaking with CPS,
which is why the investigation began. The investigator told the

(13:09):
Everman Police about their dealings with Cindy, both prior investigations
and prior actions against her, as well as her troubles
with the law, including an extensive criminal history involving alcohol
related offenses. A warrant was issued for Cindy's arrest in

(13:30):
an amberreller released early on the morning of March twenty fifth,
twenty twenty three. A description of Noel was given alongside
a description of Cindy Rodriguez Singh and her vehicle, a
silver twenty twelve Chevy Silverado with a large mural of
Santa Muerte spanning the length of the back windshield. The

(13:52):
following day, the amberreller was discontinued. Police had learned Cindy
skipped town with Arshdeep and her children five month old
twins and seven, eight, nine, and eleven year olds, but
not Noel. His case was recategorized as an endangered missing
persons alert through the Texas Department of Public Safety. That

(14:15):
same day, Everman Police detectives found the family's truck in
a garage at DFW International Airport. Their investigation subsequent of
the CPS investigation turned up a list of troubling details
and circumstances. In July of twenty twenty two, Noel Alvarez

(14:38):
had been seen by a doctor for his many health issues,
a regular occurrence. The appointment was also related to state
assistance in some way, perhaps disability SSI or Medicaid. In
October of twenty twenty two, Noel missed another of many
doctor's appointments. At some point a around this time, Cindy

(15:01):
received a letter informing her that if Noel didn't appear
at his next appointment, his monetary assistance would cease. According
to a friend of hers, Cindy asked to borrow the
friend's son to take the appointment a stand in for Noel.
It didn't happen, nor was Noel ever seen by a doctor.

(15:24):
When last seen by family members shortly before the birth
of Cindy and Arshdeep's twins, Noel was described as appearing
unhealthy and malnourished. On November one, twenty twenty two, Cindy
got passport photos for six of her children. This did
not include Noel. The next day, she applied for passports

(15:49):
for the family, everyone except Noel. On November sixth, Cindy
researched the cost of a trip to India. On the
day after Everman police officers performed the welfare check, our
steep Sing threw away the carpet from the shed floor
and Cindy got travel visas. Everyone in the family would

(16:12):
be flying to India, everyone except Noel. Police also uncovered
several allegations made against Cindy. Her brother, Contafio Rodriguez told
detectives Cindy claimed to her mother that she had sold
Noel to a woman in a Fiesta Market parking lot. Later,

(16:34):
it was determined there was absolutely no evidence to back
up this scenario. Contafio said Cindy was abusive toward Noel.
She would deprive him of food and water, he said,
because she didn't like changing his diapers. Once he even
witnessed Cindy hit Noel with a set of keys because

(16:57):
he drank water. Contafio alleged Cindy would describe the boy
as possessed and evil. He had a demon in him,
she said, and she was afraid he might harm the
newborn twin girls. When police interviewed Charles Parson, the man
who owned the house where Cindy, Arshdeep and the kids lived.

(17:19):
He said he hadn't seen Noel since Thanksgiving, around the
time Noel disappeared, Charles told detectives he was going through
a series of surgeries on his arm, which required a
lot of recuperating, so he didn't necessarily notice the child
being absent. When Cindy did mention Noel, Charles claimed. She

(17:42):
said she took him to his father's home in Mexico.
His father didn't want him, but his aunt did, and
Cindy left him there, she said. Charles believed Cindy took
Noel to a relative living in Fort Worth, since she
hadn't been gone long enough to take him to Mexi herself.

(18:02):
According to Charles, he'd never seen anything that resembled abuse
of Noel or any of the other children, nothing that
made him concerned for their safety. Cindy and Arschdeep were
good parents, he believed, and neither would ever harm the kids,
whom he added they appeared to really love. However, Charles

(18:24):
said Noel had a hard time adjusting to change and
situations in general, and wouldn't eat in protest, which explained
why he looked malnourished in Charles's mind, putting the choice
to be malnourished on a child was mental gymnastics. Either
Charles didn't want to see what was going on, or

(18:45):
he was purposely protecting Cindy. Either way, he failed Noel.
He did notice that Cindy seemed to lose interest in
Noel when she became pregnant with the twins. Charles admitted
Cindy had left Charles at the hospital, he said, without
telling him. She was fleeing. The family's phones were cut

(19:08):
off and the hospital wouldn't release him. Cindy fled, Charles said,
because the police couldn't find Noel where she told them
he was. She didn't want CPS taking her other children
away from her, and she was scared she'd go to prison.
On March twenty seventh, twenty twenty three, the Everman Police

(19:31):
conducted a search of the shed where Cindy, Arschdeep and
the kids lived, using cadaver dogs. They told the media
they had no evidence that Noel was deceased. The following day,
both the FBI and Homeland Security joined the investigation with
evidence Cindy and Arshdeep were on their way to India.

(19:52):
They'd crossed both state lines and the United States border.
In the last days of March tw felony warrants were
issued for Cindy Rodriguez sing and Arshdeep sing the charges
abandoning and endangering a child. A tip was called into

(20:12):
the department suggesting Noel might be buried under a recently
poured concrete patio at Charles Parson's property. Police used sonar
and drilled underneath the slab to see if Noel had
been buried there, but could find nothing to suggest he was.
On April sixth, twenty twenty three, the Everman Police announced

(20:34):
that Noel's case was no longer an endangered missing persons
and instead had become a death investigation. The Everman Police

(20:54):
once again searched the backyard at Charles Parson's home, around
the shed where Sin and Arsdeep Singh lived with their children.
In a nearby dumpster, police had found the carpet Arshteep
had thrown out just before the family hurriedly left the
country for India. The fact that other trash was left

(21:15):
in the apartment signaled to investigators that the rug had
not been thrown out in an attempt to clean up
the place. Rather, it had been discarded for a specific reason.
Multiple cadaver dogs alerted police to the carpet dumpster and
to areas of top soil around the makeshift shed. In

(21:36):
early March twenty twenty three. Cindy had paid for the
slab to be poured outside the shed, first to be
used as a patio and later to be framed out
and turned into a room for the little girls. The
new search warrant allowed for the removal of the concrete.
When part of it was removed, cadaver dogs alerted their

(21:57):
handlers to spots under it. Digging, however, turned up nothing.
Police and officials with Texas Search and Recovery or TECHSAR
also searched wooded areas near the home with no results.
As he continued to take up for Cindy, Charles Parson

(22:17):
insisted the cops were looking in the wrong place. Noel,
he said, was in Mexico living with his aunt. The
case of the disappearance of Noel Alvarez continued, as on
April tenth, twenty twenty three, Everman held a candlelight vigil
for the boy. The next day, the police publicly announced

(22:40):
that dogs had hit on the scent of human remains
on the discarded carpet. Three days later, the searches were
called off temporarily due to newly obtained data. The Everman
Police discovered several people Sindy and Arschdeep Singh had spoken
with in the days before they fled, and detective were
concentrating their efforts on interviewing those folks. The idea was

(23:05):
to gather more evidence so they could conduct searches in
more specific areas. There was so much data that Everman
Police Chief Craig Spencer compared it to walking into a
library and trying to find one word out of a
million books. On April twenty second, twenty twenty three, police

(23:25):
and other officials conducted searches in two different places within
a few square miles of the home, using both ground
teams and drones. First, about two hundred and fifteen acres
of land north of Bluebell Drive in the city were searched.
Then an area south of Shelby Road. Still there was

(23:46):
no sign of Little Noel. A few days later, the
Everman Police revealed that Oarshteep Singh had used his credit
card to purchase one way airline tickets to India. The
tickets were bought less than twenty four hours before he, Cindy,
and the six children boarded a plane. Besides a warrant

(24:08):
for his arrest in Noel's disappearance, Arshteep was now facing
felony theft charges as he had altered his company's deposit
records and pocketed ten thousand dollars. As the result, he
kept two thousand in cash, it appears, and placed eight
thousand into his account, which he was caught on surveillance doing.

(24:31):
Noel's grandmother and Cindy's mother spoke with WFAATV, but asked
that she not be identified. She killed him, That's why
she fled, she said of Cindy, I wonder brought back
so she can tell us where Noel is? Where is he?
What was the reason? He was a boy who didn't

(24:52):
deserve the bad fortune she gave him? He was an
innocent child. News slowed at this point in the investigation
as the Everman police had exhausted all leads into the
believed murder of Noel. But on October thirtieth, twenty twenty three,
a Arrant County grand jury indicted Cindy Rodriguez Singing on

(25:15):
four counts, one count abandonment without the intent to return,
two counts of injury to a child and one count
capital murder. The following month, the city of Everman dedicated
a playground at Clyde Pittman Park in memory of Noel
angel Alvarez. Purposefully Omitted from the dedication is the name Rodriguez,

(25:40):
which Noel technically shares with his mother her maiden name.
Special play equipment meant for children with physical and learning
challenges can be found there, and the playground is adorned
with a sign featuring Noel's picture. To this day, in
July of twenty twenty five, Noah Well Angel Alvarez has

(26:01):
never been found. Also in November of twenty twenty three,
a federal warrant was issued for Cindy the charge's unlawful
flight to avoid prosecution. In March of twenty twenty four,
a year after the case of the disappearance of Noel
began in terms of the investigation, potential witness and Cindy's

(26:26):
defender of sorts, Charles Allan Parson, died from natural causes
five months following. On August twenty ninth, twenty twenty four,
the FBI and Everman Police announced a twenty five thousand
dollars reward for information leading to Cindy's whereabouts. Cindy Rodriguez

(26:46):
sing is wanted for allegedly murdering her own young son Dallas.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Chad Yarborough said, I am
confident that the combination of publicity, significant reward offering, and
the team of experienced investigators assembled by the FBI, Everman
Police Department, Arrant County District Attorney's Office, and Texas DPS

(27:11):
will lead to her arrest. The community of Everman needs
justice for Noel. Everman Police Chief Craig Spencer added, the
immediate capture of Cindy Rodriguez Singh is so incredibly important
in the interest of justice, the safety of our communities,
as well as the safety of the other children in

(27:32):
her custody. In July of twenty twenty five, FBI and
Everman officials announced that Cindy was now on the FBI's
top ten most wanted list and the reward for information
leading to her arrest now stands at two hundred and
fifty thousand dollars. Cindy Rodriguez Singh was born in Dallas, Texas,

(27:57):
in nineteen eighty five. The forty years year old fugitive
stands between five feet one inch and five feet three
inches tall, weighs one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and forty pounds, is medium complexioned and has tattoos on
her back, both legs, right arm, right hand, and right calf.

(28:18):
She has brown eyes and brown hair, and is believed
to have ties to India and Mexico. If you have
information about the whereabouts of Cindy Rodriguez Singh, please call
the FBI Dallas Field Office at nine seven two five
five nine five thousand. Tips outside of the United States

(28:40):
should be reported to a country's US embassy. If you
have any information that might assist in the investigation of
Noel's case, please call the Everman Police Department at eight
one seven two nine three two nine two three. If
you'd like to join gon Coold's mission to shine a

(29:02):
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(29:26):
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